To change the future...

...First you must imagine it.

From this article written by a soon-to-be graduate a few months ago:

Myself, along with millions of other students, have failed to apply ourselves, not because we’re not smart enough, not because we don’t care about our future, but because we are tired of being dictated by a system of letters.

Continually brain-washing students into believing good grades are essential in living a successful life, has had some disastrous consequences:

Students are more stressed then ever. Cheating has become increasingly rampant. Students spend an excessive amount of time obsessing over getting perfect scores (after all they’ve been told they won’t have a job if they don’t.)

and

Education is not rote memorization. Education is not analyzing books that have no meaning to you. Education is not wasting your time on subjects you hate. Education is not being paralyzed because your afraid to fail.

Is anyone else listening to what students have to say?

Thinking critically...

We know that when it comes to discussing diseases and many other health concerns, students are more apt to believe someone from the medical community instead of their teacher.

However, this is disturbing: There have been many celebrities and parents groups denouncing the use of vaccines and their role in the "outbreak" of autism. without getting into the controversy of what causes autism (though honestly, as we learn more about it, the definitions get broader leading to an increase in defined cases of it.) Because of the refusal of parents to vaccinate their children, there have been outbreaks of measles, mumps, and meningitis that are significant and are discussed in this article.

The article also goes on to discuss the failure of scientists to hit these other sources of information head on. Why is it this way? Why does the American public not look at scientific information differently?

Is it because

1. For the last 10 years, scientific information has been twisted and denounced by the government and non-scientific agencies?
2. Do most people not understand the most basic principals of science that would cause one to think more critically about issues?
3. Many people are easily swayed by others they identify with and most do not identify themselves with the scientific community?

It is disturbing as there are many important issues that affect our personal and global futures.

Animals as best friends

Sometimes the furry critters are your best friends. (I know many don't understand.)

No matter what you do or think of yourself, they see the real you.

Your family and friends may not be liking you.

The world in which you move may be hateful and unyielding.

You may find that you are swimming upstream or running into walls.

It doesn't matter. Your furry friend is always there for you and waiting for you. Mine was my savior these last two years. These last two years have been the roughest in my life on many levels and he was the one constant I had who held no judgments. (I know many have worse.)

Despite enjoying NECC with my son and delivering a good poster session, I just wanted to hug my furry friend but he is no longer here. I miss him terribly. (Too many emotions buried deep just keep surfacing.)

The constructivist celebration

The highlight has been sitting with some wonderful educators: Dr. Scott McLeod, Wes Fryer, Chris Champion, and Linda Nitsche. They were all great fun and we had some wonderful discussions together.

Here are some thoughts after sitting here today at The Sidwell Friends School here in Washington DC. (The Embassy homes are all along the drive here.)

From earlier today during Gary Stager's intro:
1. Software is very important. What you can do with the software determines what you have learned. Hardware is not as important.
2. Build your own sketchpad. Use the computer for what it can't do already for true learning and critical thinking.
3. Elements of an effective project
Purpose, time, personally meaningful, and complex but including serendipity. Connected to disciplines and people. Requires discipline. We still have many kids with VERY superficial understandings of computers
4. Substantial problems are the kind where students can't sleep at night that they continue to think about.
5. Ask yourself:
Who does the project satisfy? What can they do with what they learned? Look at projects through the lens of an audience.
A good prompt is worth a thousand words. 4 elements for a good prompt: a good prompt, challenge, problem or motivation - appropriate materials, sufficient time, supportive culture (including expertise).
6. Look at a project like an artist. Is it: beautiful, thoughtful, personally meaningful, sophisticated, whimsical, sharable with a respect for the audience, moves you, enduring?
7. Focus on knowledge construction and not reproduction.

During the day we played with some wonderful programs: InspireData (great for changing data around and creating some very wonderful venn diagrams as well as changing the parameters and looking at the actual specifics of each data point.) I also played with Transform and Animation-ish. Need more time to play with these but seem to be some cool programs. Maybe will get my son to play with these and let me know what he thinks.

The live blog and ustream of the event can be found on Wes Fryer's blog.

If you have a chance to go to the Constructivist Consortium or a Constructivist Celebration, you should go. It definitely was worth the time in playing and talking to others.

Tags: Constructivist Consortium

Edubloggercon

As excited I am about attending NECC, I am very excited about Edubloggercon. I am looking forward to being re-energized with people that I follow, listen, and talk to. Many of these are on the forefront of educational change. I admire the work they do and look forward to meeting and discussing with them. I am also looking forward to finally meeting those with which I have communicated frequently or infrequently but have never met. Mostly:

Candace Hackett Shively - who has tirelessly dealt with site reviews for Teacher's First that need more work
Vicki Davis - I have followed Vicki for the last 2 1/2 years when I started reading her blog. Since that point, she has helped many educators with web 2.0 tools and I consider one of the biggest cheerleaders for those of us in the trenches trying to make change.
There are so many others that I will include in links later. There are also many others that I have met before who continue to shape my journey. All of them collectively make the journey worthwhile.

Tags: NECC09, Edubloggercon

Getting ready for NECC

I can't believe I leave in about 4 days (spending a little time with my SIL before heading to the conference.) My session description can be found here.

Accomplished:

1. Printed my NECC planner. If I could clone myself, I could actually be in all the places at the same time.
2. Printed all hotel info.
3. Added all other events that I have to my planner.
   
4. Decided where I could carve out some free time in the planner for sanity.
5. Added more information and a discussion to my NECC ning page.

Still to finish:

1. Finishing touches on the powerpoint for the session.
2. Tweaks to the background for bulletin board.
3. Packing up all the assorted materials (handouts, business cards, clips to hang up the background...)
4. Creating a packing list (while I am thinking about it all...)

After the training last week on the ITSI portal from the Concord Consortium, I feel a little rushed. The training however was great and worth the time. Met some great people and had fun and laughs.

Looking forward to meeting up with other educators and sharing!

Tags: ITSI, concord consortium, NECC, wiki, wikicentral

Professional development meme 2009

On Clif's notes is a great professional development meme. Having not had much time to participate in memes, I have let them slide by. This however, I can do. I think most set goals, but there is nothing like doing so in public and with a time limit. So here goes:

Directions

Summer can be a great time for professional development. It is an opportunity to learn more about a topic, read a particular work or the works of a particular author, beef up an existing unit of instruction, advance one’s technical skills, work on that advanced degree or certification, pick up a new hobby, and finish many of the other items on our ever-growing To Do Lists. Let’s make Summer 2009 a time when we actually get to accomplish a few of those things and enjoy the thrill of marking them off our lists.

The Rules

1. Pick 1-3 professional development goals and commit to achieving them this summer.
2. For the purposes of this activity the end of summer will be Labor Day (09/07/09).
3. Post the above directions along with your 1-3 goals on your blog.
4. Title your post Professional Development Meme 2009 and link back/trackback to http://clifmims.com/blog/archives/2447.
5. Use the following tag/ keyword/ category on your post: pdmeme09.
6. Tag 5-8 others to participate in the meme.
7. Achieve your goals and "develop professionally."
8. Commit to sharing your results on your blog during early or mid-September.

My Goals

1. Podcast more lectures for students. I really wish to have many topics available for this next year.
2. Finish all the blog posts still in edit form (14 and counting) and set some kind of schedule for blogging regularly.
3. Finish several items on my to do list which includes and is not limited to: reading of at least one great professional development book per month (including this one I will use in a book study with others), looking at state standards and essential questions, and determining a better flow of content to not be isolated subjects...

I do have other goals...finish a few hobbies that were neglected, reaffirm my connection with nature and exercise...

I tag:

Claire Thompson
Candace Shively
Jack Hassard
Doyle
Nelly Cardinale


Tags: pdmeme09

Fair use and education

A great educator and friend, Kristin Hokanson has worked tirelessly with the fair use controversy. She is well versed in and works closely with those protecting copyright from those it was designed for - the user. This press release explains remixing.

Her blog post Fair use is your friend is a wonderful explanation of Fair use. The following codes that are quoted from her blog are for use by all educators:

• Commenting or critiquing of copyrighted material
• Use for illustration or example
• Incidental or accidental capture of copyrighted material
• Memorializing or rescuing of an experience or event
  
• Use to launch a discussion
• Recombining to make a new work, such as a mashup or a remix, whose elements depend on relationships between existing works

As an educator, it is important to discuss the intent of the work to be created and the reasoning for using the item. This is a great opportunity for students to not be afraid of using items for remixing but also to be fully aware of what they are intending to produce.

Kristin has many great links to follow as well as this video which is a must see:



This is some great news for educators who have wondered what was considered able to be used and hopefully removes some of the fear in school districts.

There will be a great session at NECC. I have already signed up for the constructivist celebration that day and unfortunately will not be able to attend the session but hope it is streamed.

Tags: copyright, fairuse, centerforsocialmedia, mediaeducationlab, kristinhokanson

Quote for today

“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.” - Steve Jobs

Have seen this a few times today...

...so must be noteworthy.

We don't fail if we have tried, we just now have more information on what will work and what won't. We only truly fail when we don't do anything.

Personally and for my children, this is perhaps the biggest lesson of all.